The collection consists of anecdotes and verses, both original and excerpted from various authors, including: biographical anecdotes on Alexander the Great, Voltaire, Sir Walter Raleigh, Philip of Macedon, Socrates, British sailors, Turks, Russians, American Indians, and other individuals and groups; epistolary poetry and extracts from letters, most of which are signed William Thomspon; one letter from a British soldier at the Battle of Bunker Hill to his wife in England; elegiac and farewell poems; poems on nature, plants, and animals; hymns and prayers; religious and moral poems and fables; from speeches, and from religious texts, lectures, and sermons; recipes for burn and lip ointments, stain remover, flea repellent, and other home remedies. Excerpts attributed to Rousseau, Cowper, Goldsmith, and others. Indexed by category.

Marie-Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, marquise Du Deffand begins the letter by flattering Voltaire, noting that she asked several people who the first man of this century was and they all replied Voltaire (an answer she claims to have expected). She adds that he writes all genres charmingly and questions why he abandoned fables, offering him a fable on which he could write. The fable concerns a lion in Chantilly. Dogs that were usually thrown into the river were thrown instead to him. He strangled them all, except one whom he loved and started a family with. One day, the dog joined the lion’s tormentors, barking at him and biting his ears, so the lion strangled her. He quickly repented, carried her to their bed, and was consumed with the greatest sadness, but hopes of this sadness changing his character were dashed; he strangled without mercy any dog thrown to him. The Marquise notes that there are many morals to be drawn from this tale about ingratitude and the need to love. She then changes the subject, remarking that if she were given a choice between regaining her sight of having a thousandth part of his talents she would not know which to choose, before giving news of Madame de Pompadour’s health. The Marquise ends the letter by talking of her anger at the printing without consent of a letter send from Voltaire to herself. She promises Voltaire that anything he writes to her will not be taken from her hands, and that his letters will be put in order so that copies are never taken. She goes as far as to say that she will learn the letters by heart so that she does not have to read them.